In the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) Release-10 technical standards, transmissions from a communications controller to user equipments (UEs) include both data channels and control channels. LTE is a standard for wireless communication of high speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. Compared to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network technologies, LTE increases the capacity and speed of a network by using a different radio interface along with core network improvements.
In LTE Release-10, the carrier bandwidth is one of six possible values (1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, and 20 MHz). The frequency dimension contains subcarriers that may be 15 kHz apart. The time dimension of the system uses symbols, slots, subframes, and frames. In an example, the slots are 0.5 ms in duration. The subframes may contain two slots and be 1 ms in duration, while the frames may contain ten subframes and be 10 ms in duration. There are seven symbols in a slot when a normal cyclic prefix (CP) is used. When an extended CP is used, there are six symbols per slot. The subframes are numbered from 0 to 9.